He walked into that office holding a cardboard box ready to be fired. Bruno Bennett was a single dad hanging by a thread. And Evelyn St. James was the billionaire CEO known as the ice queen of New York architecture. But when Bruno opened that mahogany door, he didn't find a tyrant. He found a woman on her knees shattering apart.
She didn't fire him. She looked up, mascara running down her face, and whispered five words that would change their lives forever. Be my date today. What started as a lie to save her pride turned into a scandal that nearly destroyed them both. This is their story.
The rain in Seattle doesn't wash things clean. It just makes everything heavier. For Bruno Bennett, the rain was just another weight to carry. At 6:45 a.m., he was already soaked through his trench coat, wrestling a rusted umbrella while trying to buckle his six-year-old daughter, Sophie, into her booster seat. "Daddy, you're squishing Mr. Bear," Sophie complained, clutching a worn out teddy bear that had missing an eye.
"Sorry, Sophie. Daddy's just Daddy's in a hurry," Bruno said, his voice tight. He kissed her forehead, tasting the fever she'd been fighting for 3 days. It had broken this morning, thank God, but the medical bills sitting on his kitchen counter hadn't broken. They were piling up, a mountain of white paper, threatening to bury them both.
Bruno was 29, but he felt 50. Since his wife Sarah died in that car accident two years ago, he had been operating on autopilot. Sleep, work, parenting, panic, repeat. He dropped Sophie at his sister's house, ignored the check engine light glowing ominously on his dashboard, and drove toward the skyline, specifically toward the spire, the 40-story glass headquarters of St. James and Associates. Bruno was a junior draftsman.
It was a fancy title for a guy who fetched coffee and fixed the CAD renderings for the real architects. He was talented, brilliant, actually. But grief had a way of sapping your ambition. [clears throat] He kept his head down, did his work, and collected the paycheck that kept Sophie fed. But today was different. Today, rumors were swirling that Arthur St. James, the retired founder, was coming back to trim the fat.
Layoffs were coming, and Bruno, who had been late three times this month due to Sophie's health, was at the top of the list. He arrived at his desk at 8:15 a.m. [clears throat] 15 minutes late. "You're dead," whispered Greg, the guy in the cubicle next to him. Greg was eating a bagel like he was watching a car crash. The ice queen has been screaming for the blue line revisions on the Hudson project since 7.
She specifically asked for that Bennett guy, the Ice Queen, Evelyn St. James, 30 years old, heir to the firm, and arguably the most terrifying woman in the Pacific Northwest. She was beautiful in the way a stealth bomber is beautiful, sleek, expensive, and capable of destroying you without a sound. She wore 5-in heels as a weapon and treated emotions like structural inefficiencies. Bruno swallowed hard. He grabbed the Hudson files, his hands shaking slightly.
If I'm not back in 10 minutes, tell my sister to pick up Sophie. Greg saluted him with the bagel. It's been an honor, soldier. Bruno took the elevator to the top floor, the executive suite. The air up here smelled different, like ozone and expensive leather.
It was usually silent, but as Bruno approached the double mahogany doors of the CEO's office, he heard a sound that made him freeze. It wasn't screaming. It was the sound of something breaking. Not glass. It sounded like a gasp for air, a choked sob that was being violently suppressed.
He stood there, hand hovering over the brass handle. He should turn around. He should run. If Evelyn St. James was having a meltdown, the last thing she would want is a junior employee witnessing it. Witnesses get eliminated.
But then he heard a crash, a heavy book, maybe a vase hitting the wall. Bruno's instincts kicked in. The dad instincts that made him check for monsters under the bed. He didn't knock. He pushed the door open.
Ms. St. James, I have the He stopped. The office was massive. A corner suite with floor to-seeiling windows overlooking the gray weeping city. But the pristine order was gone. A chair was overturned.
Papers were scattered across the Persian rug like fallen snow. And there, leaning against the edge of her massive oak desk, was Evelyn St. James. She wasn't wearing her signature blazer. She was in a silk blouse. Her arms wrapped around herself so tightly her knuckles were white.
Her perfect blonde hair was disheveled. But it was her face that stopped Bruno's heart. She was crying. Not a polite single tear movie cry. She was weeping.
Her mascara streaking dark jagged lines down her pale cheeks. her breath coming in ragged, hyperventilating hitches. She looked up as the door clicked shut. Her eyes, usually a piercing, icy blue, were red and wide with panic. For a second, nobody moved. The silence was deafening, amplified by the rain hammering against the glass.
"Get out," she rasped. Her voice was broken, stripped of all its command. Bruno stood his ground. He saw the object on the floor near her feet. It was a tablet.
The screen cracked. On the display, even from this distance, he could see a photo, a tabloid headline. Tech mogul. Preston Hayes engaged to socialite Clara St. James. Bruno's mind raced.
Clara was Evelyn's younger sister. Preston Hayes was Wasn't that Evelyn's college sweetheart? the man she had been with for 5 years. The man she had quietly broken up with only 3 months ago. The realization hit Bruno like a punch. Her ex-boyfriend was marrying her sister.